Red and White Farmer's Wife Update [Paper-Piecing]

Hello.  Hello.

Happy Monday Everyone.

Hope you all had a nice weekend.  I've got some sick kids home from school today.  And I, myself, have been in my pajamas for 24 hours.  I was feeling a little worn down Friday afternoon and have been taking it easy ever since. 

I did happen to make some more headway on my Farmer's Wife quilt last week and thought I'd share my progress with you.  I've got 11 new blocks that I'm really excited about.  I really enjoyed making them this time around!  Imagine that :)

 

Maybe it's because I got to do some paper-piecing!?!  I heard about the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt Along Group on Yahoo.  You have to request to be a member but once approved you have access to paper-piecing patterns for all 111 blocks!  Have I told you how much I love paper-piecing?  I really was on-a-roll one day last week and busted out 6 PP blocks!  And I'm itching to do more!

 The blocks featured above are the ones I paper-pieced.  Some of them are quite easy and I probably would have been fine to use templates for them but you don't waste as much time cutting out each piece (you do waste more fabric this way though).

One new thing I tried with these blocks was using sandwich paper instead of regular printer paper.  It's so much thinner and easier on your needle.  And, you can print directly onto the sandwich paper.  I've printed out 9 patterns so far and haven't had a problem with it not feeding through my printer.  You just have to trim it down a little because it's a little bigger than your standard 8-1/2" x 11" paper.  You can buy a big box of the sandwich paper at Costco.

 This block below was probably the hardest of the bunch.  Not because it has tiny or intricate pieces but because it has slight Y-seams.  It was fine once I got over the shock that I still would have to do Y-seams even on paper-piecing.  But the lines on the paper show you exactly where to pivot.  And it all laid flat once I took an iron to it.

[#47 Homemaker]

[#65 Peaceful Hours]

[#77 Seasons]

[#66 Periwinkle]

 [#74 Ribbons]

 

[#59 Night and Day]

 The next four blocks I used the template method.

[#19 Checkerboard]

[#57 Morning - this one was a little trickier than it looks.]

[#49 Honeycomb]

 [#8 Bouquet - I like this block]

And for this block (below) I just used the half-square triangle method where you sew zig zags on two strips of fabric (RST) and then cut the zig zags apart.  Press open and trim to the correct size.  Don't know what that method is called...but it's a fast way to get lots of HST out of the same two fabrics.

[#87 Star Gardener]

I think I have about 54 blocks finished so far.  I know, it feels like I should be getting close to finished by now but I'm only about half way.  I'm starting to second guess my plan to make all 111 blocks.  Any thoughts?  I could probably use a little motivation right now.  I always need a little extra when I realize just how many I've made and how it's not even close to the 111 blocks in the book.

Oh well, I've got to focus on the positive and how much fun these last few blocks were to make!  I really want to get back in my sewing room and sew a few more!  The goal for the FWQ-Along that I'm in at work is to be finished in April so I really need to get my butt in gear and finish the last...fifty-seven.  Oh crap.  That's a lot.